Fuck its silent in here.......

[MikeC]

I will give the kid the benefit of the doubt...

We're giving benefit of doubt now?

Democrats and the media have the benefit of the doubt only for Democrats. Republicans they jump to conclusions on. Just look at the Sarah Palin coverage to the John Edwards. They drug out every off the wall rumor they could think of for Palin, but John Edwards was fucking his mistress and fathering a babying on the side and the media tried its best to keep that quiet.

[R-V]

I guess the short story of it is, he has a whole team of people paid to pour over his speeches

I like to pour delicious honey on my speeches. Do you think Obama's team gives him different flavor options, like at the dentist?

were just people on message boards who do it for free and by ourselves.

What do Mark Foley's IM transcripts have to do with anything?

[Slaky]

Does ANYONE really give a fuck about ACORN?

[Internet Apex]

Does ANYONE really give a fuck about ACORN?

You heartless bastard.

[Slaky]

Does ANYONE really give a fuck about ACORN?

You heartless bastard.

Great band.

[Gilgamesh]

Does ANYONE really give a fuck about ACORN al-Qaeda?

HowRepublicansviewit'd.

[thehawk]

State of the Union Addresses are hokey political theater no matter if it's being staged by Rove, Mike Deaver, James Carville, Mary Matalin, or David Axelrod. Why are we wasting time on this? Shouldn't we be discussing something more important like the bipartisan agreement that the Bears are run by a bunch of dumbasses? Or maybe a thread of "examples of how Patrick Kane and John Madden could have done better in Vancouver, complete with photos."

I come to unite, not divide. We can argue politics later. We're arguing over another SOTU address which shocked everyone by having these never-before seen elements:

1) The political hacks from both parties staking out spots near the aisle so they could shake hands/hug/kiss/grope/make a snarky comment at the president;
2) The facial expressions of the veep and speaker throughout the speech, no doubt assuring the physical safety of the President since at least 1989;
3) The introduction of the "common American" that the President brings into the speech at some point;
4) The well-designed applause lines that become a cause for the President's side of the aisle to make noise as if their team just won the World Series (do you make noise when this happens? I wouldn't know) These applause breaks make the speech approximately 4 times longer than it should be.
5) The shots of some lawmaker/cabinet member snoozing or misbehaving;
6) Red meat proposals for the President's party base;
7) An opposition response that's as silly and staged (if not more staged; come on, did Gov. McDonnell have to act like he was doing a SOTU too?) as the actual SOTU;
8) A couple good lines that we will later learn were written by one of the President's speechwriters who later goes on to greater glory as a newspaper columnist, author, cable TV talking head, or candidate for office him(her)self.
9) A lot of us bickering when we could be doing something more productive (like discuss Vancouver's ladies or Xavier Nady's physical or why Chuck is wrong or why Mike Tice and Rob Marinelli = BONERTIME in the fall).

Teej, never thought I would say this to one of your comments on the political thread, but THIS.  SotU has been Jon-level political theater for a long long time.

[Jon]

State of the Union Addresses are hokey political theater no matter if it's being staged by Rove, Mike Deaver, James Carville, Mary Matalin, or David Axelrod. Why are we wasting time on this? Shouldn't we be discussing something more important like the bipartisan agreement that the Bears are run by a bunch of dumbasses? Or maybe a thread of "examples of how Patrick Kane and John Madden could have done better in Vancouver, complete with photos."

I come to unite, not divide. We can argue politics later. We're arguing over another SOTU address which shocked everyone by having these never-before seen elements:

1) The political hacks from both parties staking out spots near the aisle so they could shake hands/hug/kiss/grope/make a snarky comment at the president;
2) The facial expressions of the veep and speaker throughout the speech, no doubt assuring the physical safety of the President since at least 1989;
3) The introduction of the "common American" that the President brings into the speech at some point;
4) The well-designed applause lines that become a cause for the President's side of the aisle to make noise as if their team just won the World Series (do you make noise when this happens? I wouldn't know) These applause breaks make the speech approximately 4 times longer than it should be.
5) The shots of some lawmaker/cabinet member snoozing or misbehaving;
6) Red meat proposals for the President's party base;
7) An opposition response that's as silly and staged (if not more staged; come on, did Gov. McDonnell have to act like he was doing a SOTU too?) as the actual SOTU;
8) A couple good lines that we will later learn were written by one of the President's speechwriters who later goes on to greater glory as a newspaper columnist, author, cable TV talking head, or candidate for office him(her)self.
9) A lot of us bickering when we could be doing something more productive (like discuss Vancouver's ladies or Xavier Nady's physical or why Chuck is wrong or why Mike Tice and Rob Marinelli = BONERTIME in the fall).

Teej, never thought I would say this to one of your comments on the political thread, but THIS.  SotU has been Jon-level political theater for a long long time.

I never thought I'd both agree with TJ on a political thread AND get namechecked on another agreement.

[Oleg]

I read somewhere that he turned off the AVS checking of credit card donations (checks donor's name, address, etc. against the credit card company's records) or something, which could have led to such behavior... but I never saw anything that established that such behavior was in fact occurring.  It may well have, but that's a serious allegation which requires some backup.

Name isn't checked by AVS. Only the address, zip, and the CVV on the back are checked. Seriously, though: responding to MikeC, morph? Hasn't Andre Bauer taught you anything about feeding stray animals?

Go fuck your OWN FACE, man.

Pedant'd for accurate quoting purposes.

And the fact that AVS doesn't check the name (which is my mistake in stating that it does) doesn't change the fact that turning off AVS is still not a good idea unless you're trying to enable bad behavior.

So, I'm thinking about this; and I can't figure out how turning off AVS enables bad behavior.

All that AVS does is match the address given when paying by credit card to the actual billing address of the credit card holder.  For example, when a small business owner buys a printer from a large IT reseller and pays by credit card, that IT reseller will run an AVS check to make sure there is no fraud in the use of the credit card.  It won't check anything else.  So, if the reseller puts the charge through, ships the product, and then the credit card comes back declined because of a mismatched address, the reseller will not get paid by the bank.

In a campaign sense, all that means is that that donations won't be collected by the campaign.  Since Obama's campaign was rolling in the dough, I'm guessing this didn't really concern them.  The trade-off was faster donation processing for not having the most accurate info and risking not getting paid from he bank/credit card company.

Having AVS turned on wouldn't keep people who aren't supposed to be donating from donating.  As long as the billing address supplied matched the billing address of the credit card, the payment/donation would go through.

So, maybe I'm missing something, but why is this now all of a sudden an issue?

[Gilgamesh]

I read somewhere that he turned off the AVS checking of credit card donations (checks donor's name, address, etc. against the credit card company's records) or something, which could have led to such behavior... but I never saw anything that established that such behavior was in fact occurring.  It may well have, but that's a serious allegation which requires some backup.

Name isn't checked by AVS. Only the address, zip, and the CVV on the back are checked. Seriously, though: responding to MikeC, morph? Hasn't Andre Bauer taught you anything about feeding stray animals?

Go fuck your OWN FACE, man.

Pedant'd for accurate quoting purposes.

And the fact that AVS doesn't check the name (which is my mistake in stating that it does) doesn't change the fact that turning off AVS is still not a good idea unless you're trying to enable bad behavior.

So, I'm thinking about this; and I can't figure out how turning off AVS enables bad behavior.

All that AVS does is match the address given when paying by credit card to the actual billing address of the credit card holder.  For example, when a small business owner buys a printer from a large IT reseller and pays by credit card, that IT reseller will run an AVS check to make sure there is no fraud in the use of the credit card.  It won't check anything else.  So, if the reseller puts the charge through, ships the product, and then the credit card comes back declined because of a mismatched address, the reseller will not get paid by the bank.

In a campaign sense, all that means is that that donations won't be collected by the campaign.  Since Obama's campaign was rolling in the dough, I'm guessing this didn't really concern them.  The trade-off was faster donation processing for not having the most accurate info and risking not getting paid from he bank/credit card company.

Having AVS turned on wouldn't keep people who aren't supposed to be donating from donating.  As long as the billing address supplied matched the billing address of the credit card, the payment/donation would go through.

So, maybe I'm missing something, but why is this now all of a sudden an issue?

How does any of this negate the fact that the MAN NEVER PRODUCED A BIRTH CERTIFICATE!!!!

COME ON! /gob

[Slaky]

I read somewhere that he turned off the AVS checking of credit card donations (checks donor's name, address, etc. against the credit card company's records) or something, which could have led to such behavior... but I never saw anything that established that such behavior was in fact occurring.  It may well have, but that's a serious allegation which requires some backup.

Name isn't checked by AVS. Only the address, zip, and the CVV on the back are checked. Seriously, though: responding to MikeC, morph? Hasn't Andre Bauer taught you anything about feeding stray animals?

Go fuck your OWN FACE, man.

Pedant'd for accurate quoting purposes.

And the fact that AVS doesn't check the name (which is my mistake in stating that it does) doesn't change the fact that turning off AVS is still not a good idea unless you're trying to enable bad behavior.

So, I'm thinking about this; and I can't figure out how turning off AVS enables bad behavior.

All that AVS does is match the address given when paying by credit card to the actual billing address of the credit card holder.  For example, when a small business owner buys a printer from a large IT reseller and pays by credit card, that IT reseller will run an AVS check to make sure there is no fraud in the use of the credit card.  It won't check anything else.  So, if the reseller puts the charge through, ships the product, and then the credit card comes back declined because of a mismatched address, the reseller will not get paid by the bank.

In a campaign sense, all that means is that that donations won't be collected by the campaign.  Since Obama's campaign was rolling in the dough, I'm guessing this didn't really concern them.  The trade-off was faster donation processing for not having the most accurate info and risking not getting paid from he bank/credit card company.

Having AVS turned on wouldn't keep people who aren't supposed to be donating from donating.  As long as the billing address supplied matched the billing address of the credit card, the payment/donation would go through.

So, maybe I'm missing something, but why is this now all of a sudden an issue?

It's fucking not - but Mike C posted something about it. So here we are.

[CBStew]

I will give the kid the benefit of the doubt...

We're giving benefit of doubt now?

Democrats and the media have the benefit of the doubt only for Democrats. Republicans they jump to conclusions on. Just look at the Sarah Palin coverage to the John Edwards. They drug out every off the wall rumor they could think of for Palin, but John Edwards was fucking his mistress and fathering a babying on the side and the media tried its best to keep that quiet.

He fathered a babying on the side?   That is newsworthy.

[morpheus]

I read somewhere that he turned off the AVS checking of credit card donations (checks donor's name, address, etc. against the credit card company's records) or something, which could have led to such behavior... but I never saw anything that established that such behavior was in fact occurring.  It may well have, but that's a serious allegation which requires some backup.

Name isn't checked by AVS. Only the address, zip, and the CVV on the back are checked. Seriously, though: responding to MikeC, morph? Hasn't Andre Bauer taught you anything about feeding stray animals?

Go fuck your OWN FACE, man.

Pedant'd for accurate quoting purposes.

And the fact that AVS doesn't check the name (which is my mistake in stating that it does) doesn't change the fact that turning off AVS is still not a good idea unless you're trying to enable bad behavior.

So, I'm thinking about this; and I can't figure out how turning off AVS enables bad behavior.

All that AVS does is match the address given when paying by credit card to the actual billing address of the credit card holder.  For example, when a small business owner buys a printer from a large IT reseller and pays by credit card, that IT reseller will run an AVS check to make sure there is no fraud in the use of the credit card.  It won't check anything else.  So, if the reseller puts the charge through, ships the product, and then the credit card comes back declined because of a mismatched address, the reseller will not get paid by the bank.

In a campaign sense, all that means is that that donations won't be collected by the campaign.  Since Obama's campaign was rolling in the dough, I'm guessing this didn't really concern them.  The trade-off was faster donation processing for not having the most accurate info and risking not getting paid from he bank/credit card company.

Having AVS turned on wouldn't keep people who aren't supposed to be donating from donating.  As long as the billing address supplied matched the billing address of the credit card, the payment/donation would go through.

So, maybe I'm missing something, but why is this now all of a sudden an issue?

It's fucking not - but Mike C posted something about it. So here we are.

Meh, it was something that got some play on the right-leaning blogs during the campaign.  Nothing "all of a sudden" about it, except that MikeC brought it up.  We're way past that now, and I really don't know if anything substantive was even there anyway.

[BH]

Does ANYONE really give a fuck about ACORN?

You heartless bastard.

Great band.

I just watched the Avett Brothers and them on Austin City Limits. She was duller live then I thought she'd be, but they are a good band with good songs.

[fiveouts]

Democrats and the DURN LIBRUL MEDIA have the benefit of the doubt only for Democrats.

boogeyman'd.